For "Emilia Galotti," Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's tale of lust and court intrigue, director Michael Thalheimer does not wait for the characters to embark on their fatal paths before allowing sparks to fly. In this dazzling staging -- one that distills Lessing's drama to a whirlwind 80 minutes -- two flames follow the title character as she makes her entrance walking silently, regally downstage in scenic designer Olaf Altmann's chicly elegant environment. As Regine Zimmermann's captivatingly imperious yet slightly aloof Emilia reaches the front of this empty box made of light-colored wood, sparks shower down from the flies.
Zimmermann's entrance and the pyrotechnics jolt the audience into this Deutsches Theater Berlin production and Thalheimer's world, which feels very much like a fever-pitch dream that's taking place in some downtown loft space (one's sense of place is enhanced by Altmann's sleek, contemporary Italianate costume design). Throughout, Bert Wrede's pulsating original score (a waltz that insidiously ingratiates itself into theatregoers' ears) plays underneath.
What emerges in the play is a richly layered exploration of public appearance versus internal reality. Words -- spoken in German at a speed that reduces lines to gibberish -- have almost no meaning. Even as the audience reads the supertitles, the performers' stylized movements reveal what lies just underneath courtly decorum. Emilia's noble fiancé (Henning Vogt) swoops carnally around his intended even as his words remain coolly formal. From their dialogue, her parents (Peter Pagel and Katrin Klein) seem to have an unhappy marriage, but small gestures reveal their deep fondness for one another.
Most amusing and frightening are Sven Lehmann's Prince Gonzaga and Ingo Hülsmann's portrayal of the chamberlain who engineers the murderous plot that secures Emilia for the prince and away from her intended. Here, Thalheimer's audaciously successful bifurcation of word from action reveals how men's duplicity and abuse of power can lead to explosive conclusions.